Letters Home
by Reklar
Summary: One-shot. Shepard is about to embark upon the Suicide Mission, but cannot leave without one last goodbye. A collection of "dead letters" to Kaidan/Ashley from three different Shepards. Rated M for uncomfortable subject matter in the third letter.


A/N: After completing Mass Effect 2 twice I began wondering what a "dead letter" from Shepard to Ashley/Kaidan would sound like and, sure enough, the little story demons popped into my head and wouldn't let the thought go. Below are the perspectives from three different versions of Shepard that I've played. Caution: The third letter does contain subject matter that is objectionable and/or uncomfortable for some readers and is not intended for shock value, it is merely how the character developed in the process of writing.

**Letters Home**

_Dear Kaidan,_

_If you're reading this that means I'm probably dead. God, that sounds cliché, but I don't know how else to start this letter. All I do know is I'm sorry for how things ended on Horizon, and that I received your message a few days later. I wanted so much to respond, to say something to reassure you that I was coming back, that I'd find you no matter how long it took, but every time I started to write the words wouldn't come to me. So now, only hours before we head into the Omega 4 Relay to face the Collectors, to stop them from taking any more of our colonists, I've finally found a way to tell you what I should have told you long ago._

_I love you, Kaidan._

_I wish that things could have been different, that you could be here with me now, to make me feel more certain this wasn't a suicide mission, that the good guys could win one more fight before the darkness falls and the end comes._

_I don't know what the next few hours will bring, Kaidan. I'm unsure of myself in ways I can't afford to show to the crew and I don't dare confide in anyone. Even Tali, the sister of my heart, and Mordin, the most unexpected guide for my conscience, can't know how shaken I truly feel right now. I think they all suspect something is wrong, but I've done my best to conceal it, and so the only one left I can turn to is you._

_I wish you were here, Kaidan._

_I wish that I could hold you in my arms one more time and feel the security you bring with nothing more than your steady breathing._

_But you aren't mine to hold anymore, Kaidan, and I understand that, understand that you needed to move on, to heal, to forget me in order to continue living._

_Live Kaidan._

_Live and move forward._

_Take what time is left to you and don't hold back, don't rob yourself of the happiness you deserve. If there is anything I have left to give you, anything at all, it's to give my blessing and tell you to live and be happy, Kaidan. I owe you more than that, but my time ran out._

_Live well, Kaidan Alenko._

_Always,_

_Shepard_

* * *

><p><em>Dear Ash,<em>

_If you're reading this that means I've failed._

_Again._

_I never should have let you go on Horizon. I should have made you hear me out, to listen to the truth until you could no longer stand the sound of my voice._

_I was a fool to let your message go unanswered, but every time I tried to write I could no longer see straight, let alone think. If it hadn't been for the damnable pace I've found myself setting, pushing us all to prepare for the suicide mission we are about to embark upon, I'd have found some way to reach you again._

_I miss you Ash. Your laugh, your poetry, your stories, your kiss; but I miss your smile the most, because I never felt surer of myself than when you smiled. I know you said you were never very good with words, but you don't have to be when you can tell me everything I need to know in one dazzling smile. You put your trust in me, not just as your commanding officer, but as your friend, and your lover._

_I failed you when I let you go, Ash._

_It's too late to take back my inaction now, but I had to let you know that I love you, and that I wish things could have worked out differently between us. I know you're hurting, Ash, but you have to move on now, find your own way again and, I hope, find the happiness you deserve._

_The Reapers are still coming, Ash. I don't know if they can be stopped, but if it can be done, I know you can find a way to make it happen. I know you put your faith in me as a leader, and it was due in part to that faith that I succeeded where others would have failed, but I'm gone and you need to take up the mantle now._

_Find a way to stop them, Ash. I know you can do it._

_For what it's worth, I'll be watching over you._

_Watching, and waiting._

_I'll never forget you, Ash. Take care, and live well._

_Forever,_

_Shepard_

* * *

><p><em>Dear Kaidan,<em>

_I don't know where to begin._

_So much has happened since Horizon, and I find I can barely read the screen to write this, but I know I have to do it now. Do it now before I run out of time._

_In a few hours we'll find out just how much the new Normandy can handle, and whether this new team I've assembled has the resolve to see this thing through to the end._

_I miss you, Kaidan. Oh God, how I miss you._

_I need to feel your arms wrapped around me as reassurance that I'm still alive. Nothing has felt right since I awoke in that Cerberus facility, and all of this…this…insanity began. I can hardly sleep, hardly eat, and my thoughts all turn to you before too long. I don't have that grounding, that anchor that made you strong, Kaidan._

_I never told you about my past, not really, and this is my only chance I guess. I was born in a Scottish slum back on Earth. Life was crowded, hungry, and utterly miserable. I never knew my father, and all I remember of my mother is the faintest impression of protection when she held me in her arms. I don't know if she's alive or dead, whether she remembers me at all, or if I was just a mistake best forgotten. I was always too afraid to find out._

_That's me, Kaidan; the hero who's afraid to even try and look for her mother._

_You know about my time in the gangs, that chapter of my life is public knowledge. What isn't public though, what nobody knows, and I never wanted known, is that I had a daughter._

_I was only sixteen when it happened. One of the rival gangs had brought in their allies and set a trap for us. Our leader was tough, but he wasn't too bright, and we walked right into it._

_They slaughtered us._

_Out of the original thirty or so we numbered, only three of us survived, all girls._

_Kaidan, what they did to us no girl should ever have to endure. I was the oldest, and I tried to protect the two younger girls, but all I accomplished was getting beaten to a pulp. When I finally came to, one eye swollen shut and my mouth full of bloody and broken teeth, I found out they were dead; throats cut and faces smashed until they were unrecognizable. They'd had their way with both of them and then killed them. I guess by the time they had finished with me they'd thought me dead, so there was no need to slash my throat. There was no sign of them anywhere, and as much as I just wanted to lay there and die, I somehow found the will to move._

_I don't know how I managed to crawl so far, naked and bleeding, but somehow I managed to get back to one of the main streets. I was too weak to even beg for help, but just before I passed out I felt strong hands wrap me in something that felt like a jacket, pick me up, and then start carrying me away; all without a single word. It must have been hell for him, because it had to have been at least twenty or thirty blocks to the nearest hospital, all of it through areas the police were afraid to regularly patrol, but he made it somehow. I never found who he was, but he saved my life._

_The only thing the staff could tell me was that he was tall and muscular, with short brown hair, and that he had been wearing off-duty Alliance fatigues. They said it was obvious he'd been in a fight, but aside from some bruises, raw knuckles, and a split eyebrow, he was untouched. He refused any treatment for himself, left a large sum of credits to pay for my care, and then left._

_Before I left the hospital they told me I was pregnant, and that they could end it before it went any further if I wanted it done. I don't know how long it actually took for me to respond, but something told me I couldn't do it. That soldier had saved my life when I was helpless, when without his protection I would have certainly died, and knowing that, I just couldn't bring myself to end a life that was only just beginning, when it was even more helpless than I was then._

_I can't say I enjoyed being pregnant, but with the help of a hospital aid group I was able to get by until the baby was born and old enough for adoption. I wanted to do what was best for her, and I thought again of that soldier leaving me in the care of the hospital, asking for nothing in return, and I let her go. Six months later I joined the Alliance._

_I still have his jacket tucked away in a safe place. Sometimes, when I need to remind myself why I joined the Alliance, I take out that jacket to remember what a soldier, even just a combat engineer like me, can do to protect others when the odds seem impossible._

_When I met you, Kaidan, when I saw how you cared for the crew, cared for all the colonists on Feros, how fiercely you fought to try and get back to save Ashley before I ordered you to give up, I was reminded of that soldier who saved my life so long ago._

_You became my hero, Kaidan._

_You reminded me that a hero has an obligation to protect the innocent, no matter the odds, and it shamed me, Kaidan. Shamed me because for all of my medals, for all of the glory that's been heaped upon my name, and all of the tough choices that I've been forced to make, I never had the courage to go back to Earth and find my daughter._

_That's me, Kaidan; the hero who's afraid to even try and look for her daughter._

_I'm no hero, Kaidan. A hero doesn't leave a child behind to face her fate alone. Every child deserves a mother to care for them until they can make it on their own. And while she probably went to a good home, with good people, I can't help but feel I gave her up too easily, that I failed to even give her a chance to know her real mother, to let her know I cared._

_I can't turn back the clock, but if I come back alive from this suicide mission against the Collectors, and if I can find a way to stop the Reapers from wiping us all off the face of the galaxy, then at least I can say I did one thing good for my daughter as a fellow human being, even if I failed her as a mother._

_You made me realize that, Kaidan. You and that lopsided smile of yours, that soft chuckle, that quiet voice that never failed to reassure me when I needed it the most._

_Only God knows how much I miss you right now, Kaidan._

_I won't ask, I can't ask, for you to wait for me, but please…if you can…forgive me for letting you go, for not contacting you sooner, before it was too late for you to reply._

_I love you, Kaidan, I always will, and I'm sorry I failed you._

_That's me, Kaidan; the hero who's afraid to even tell the man she loves how she feels._

_All My Love,_

_Shepard_


End file.
